A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

Why is this man whinning in TV? Why is he calling for government intervention? Isn´t that what communist regimes are accused of doing? Isn´t the invisible hand great and effective? Just got to love neo liberalism capitalists... Private profits, public losses... way to go...

A few months ago someone here predicted DOW 7000. He was severly ridiculed, probably by DOPES. When he made that prediction we were at 13,000. Now we're below 10,000 which is more then half way down to 7K. Dow 7000 doesn't seem so crazy now.

Crammer was on a Political channel last night . His point was that the people are crazy if they think that we can lower taxes . Crammer in essence said that we are going to need to raise taxes to bail out the banks . The host of the shows started laughing and changing the subject .Funny how most of the world is so stupid that they think that they will have options on not raising taxes ,while at the same time Paulson and the Feds want "blank checks " from the taxpayers to do there dirty little bail-outs .But ,Paulson doesn't want to say how much will be needed because a "blank check" will restore confidence . Isn't everyone getting sick of one bail out after another .

"You don't need me to tell you it's awful out there. You don't need me to tell you that there's no quick fix for any of these things. But what might help you understand why it feels so bad this time is that I have never, in my career, seen so many companies go off track at the same time. This is one unbelievable moment, and it is made more horrible by the day as companies' stocks just get pummeled, causing people to then question the very viability of the companies involved."

At the end of the article, he wraps up by saying:

"Someone asked me yesterday, "When do we bottom?" I said it wouldn't be until all the banks that have to fail do so and GM files bankruptcy along with Ford. I said it matter-of-factly, because I meant it and because it is obvious."

I must have missed the video, from a few years back, of Cramer screaming for the CEOs of these companies to share their multi-million dollar stock options with us peasants, while they were recklessly running their companies into the ground.

Cramer: Ben please bail out yours and my banker buddies even though they ran their companies into the ground. and everyone else is screwed because of it. But pls bail them out, they're losing their jobs. k thanks. good job.

I'm cautiously long via fairly short-term calls and will buy more as we drop. Important expiration this week. If it stays down, it will be the first 2 months in a row down expiration week in recent memory. I'm still thinking rally this week but it seems hard to imagine from the doom & gloom. Bennie needs to come up with some good trick. Remember the surprise rate cut day before expiration in, what, Oct or Nov 2007? That killed the expiration shorts for 300 pts on open. Maybe a surprise 50bp cut on Thu/Fri this week? What else will work at this point?

Certainly the market will tank again, but there has to be a bounce as the short-term downside run has been too long by historical standards.

Speaking of Wall Street shenanigans, I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the recent SEC policy changes this week, with the SEC attempting to prop up financial institutions like Fannie and Freddie (and 17 others) by making it more difficult and costly to short financial companies (i.e. trying to discourage "naked" shorts).

It had it's intended effect: after SKF (the ETF that tracks the downside of the financial index) jumped to all-time record highs earlier in the week, the SEC announcement came out and SKF plummeted within a day. UYG rallied, and gained an incredible amount within a few days, only to slightly correct Thursday and Friday. With all the uncertainty, investors are afraid to short stocks of financials.

All of which strikes me as the height of irony:

Remember, Goldman Sucks was hailed as the smartest guys on Wall St. since they were SHORTING the mortgage companies who had all the bad assets on their books, knowing they'd tank when the news of the crisis became public knowledge. IN FACT, they were shorting stock out of the back office EVEN WHILE their front office was selling and recommending the same stocks to the public! How slimy is that?

If there's one thing Wall St. respects, it's making $$$: ethical concerns swept aside, and most traders see GS as Gods who not only ducked the bullet, but profited from it!

So shorting financial stocks was OK then for them, but now that firms like GS have made their $$$, it's not OK any longer?

Besides, the SEC is acting like the shorts caused this mess: uh, the firms THEMSELVES committed financial suicide by lowering lending standards to give $$$ to anyone who said "pretty-please", with no verification of their willingness or ability to actually re-pay!!! The greed of these lenders blinded them from prudent lending decisions, and now they're going to pay.

Don't blame the short-sellers, who in many cases are trying to re-coup from the damage and losses these same firms have inflicted on the short-sellers stock portfolio.